Nicole Celichowski

How did you start building your network?

As a college student, I remember walking through the streets of New York City with a professor who was giving a small group of us an introduction to the city. While we were walking, she stopped at several points to talk with people who were just "doing their jobs" in the city. There were two things that impressed me about that tour. First, I thought she was being very brave! She was "interrupting" people who were trying to get their jobs done, and why would they want to talk to us anyway? What I eventually discovered was that she wasn't being brave, she was acting out of a sense of CURIOSITY. Curiosity has led me to meet more people of all walks of life and learn things I wouldn't have if I hadn't followed my professor's lead and "bravely" made that spirit of curiosity a core guiding principle. It's a GREAT way to meet people and get insights beyond one's own experience. The second thing I learned on that walk was that more often than not, people are glad to share their knowledge and experience with others. That's the part of growing a network that gets really fun--you see so many different skills that people have, and so many different ways they navigate life. It's very interesting! Finally, a network is NOT just a long list of names of people you don't really know. A network has the potential to be as vast as the world, but it should be curated to include people you WANT to be associated with, because you share interests, workplaces, schools, and so on. LinkedIn is a great online resource for building your network that you can then use to get questions answered, to find job leads, and to learn about all the cool things people around you are doing. So don't be intimidated by "networking," be CURIOUS. And have your website/portfolio/contact information ready to share when someone wants to connect with you.